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| It's a fortress, but there's just too many draws... |
It was a rather strange side fielded by Dalglish with Kuyt as the sole man up front and a 3 man defence with Enrique and Johnson pushed forward. A lot of people have been defending Dalglish to the hilt but i have to be honest, even King's make mistakes and i believe Dalglish should hold his hands up and say he got it wrong on Saturday.
Whether a different team would have got the three points who knows but that line up wasn't ideal.
Liverpool once again maintained a lot of possession, something they have become pretty good at this season but there's no spark, no cutting edge. Possession stats always get on my nerves because people use them as a positive, there is no use having bags of possession and doing nothing with it, something Liverpool are very much guilty of.
Steven Gerrard provided a bit of life in midfield and although Kuyt worked his socks off as always the Dutchman aside from a header late on, never really looked like scoring.
Stoke didn't really trouble Pepe Reina but it was quite clear from the onset that they weren't going to be coming out all guns blazing. Pulis even said post match that when he received the Liverpool team sheet he adjusted his side to carry out his original tactics, he didn't change to attack the three man defence.
Just before the hour mark Dalglish made a substitution bringing on Andy Carroll but by taking off Stewart Downing, the Geordie's service was lowered immediately. I'm not fully impressed with Stewart Downing at the moment so usually him being subbed wouldn't bother me but i just thought it was a weird choice considering who was brought on.
Craig Bellamy came on just after 70 minutes and the Anfield faithful hoped perhaps their best technical player could provide some magic but not even the Welshman could get things going.
Two late penalty shouts for Liverpool for me weren't very clear cut, my stream was terrible and I'm going on highlights so some may have got a better view but to be honest, even if it was a penalty, should we really be relying on a spot kick against Stoke at home to grab three points?
It was the right result in the end i feel after a very poor performance from Liverpool. For me, the sooner we invest in a natural goalscorer the better. And the sooner Luis Suarez is back the better too.
I don't know whether Dalglish had some sort of tactics in mind going in to Saturday's match but if he did, they didn't work. Next up for Liverpool is Bolton away, if the Reds don't walk away with three points from that one then alarm bells will be ringing.